Keep your veils, but give us your dinars, riyals and dirhams:

The French government announced on Wednesday that within the next two weeks it will be pushing through new tax legislation to make it easier for French firms to attract Islamic financing as the country battles the global credit crunch.

Another tax reform, currently under review by the constitutional council, could allow Islamic “sukuk” bonds to be issued in France and the opening of Islamic retail banking services to French Muslims in 2010.